Tag Archives: GoldenGateBridge

Another processed JPG bracket from my outing to San Francisco a few weeks ago. This one was processed with Nik HDR Efex Pro2, Topaz Detail 3.1 and some adjustment layers with a little masking to reduce halos. I had also moved a couple of feet to the right from the last position.

This is kind of experimental for me. I've been limited in my ability to get out and about with my camera for around three years. (That explains why most of my posts are from the archives.) But last week I had a pretty good day and felt confident that I could un-hook the leash from . . . home for a few hours, which allowed me to get all the way over to San Francisco.

I had an inkling of this particular view that I got from a newspaper blog that featured photos of snow in San Francisco in 1976. I remember that occasion well- snow down to sea level, a rare event around here! One of the photos was of a view similar to this, but perhaps with more of the Marin Headlands, and the caption said that it was taken near the Palace of The Legion of Honor. My vantage point was from just below the PLH on a path that winds through the Lincoln Park golf course.

My current prescription lenses are not exactly camera friendly, so of all the shots I took, a fair number of them were out of focus. I'll have to remember to take my 3X reading lenses with me next time. The other problem is that my camera (Panasonic FZ30) will only bracket JPEGs. And, by current technological standards, the sensor is quite noisy when the light is dimming. Nevertheless, I did capture a couple of 1 -1 +1 brackets.

After detail processing in Lightroom, the trio of shots was sent to HDR Pro in Photoshop. Once the HDR part was done, several adjustment layers aided in getting what is shown here, with the sky from original -1 frame masked in and set to around 50% opacity.